


take flight

by Nerdanel



Category: Guild Wars 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Mourning, spoilers for LS4-5 All of Nothing, they/them commander
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:02:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25711057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nerdanel/pseuds/Nerdanel
Summary: A short piece on the aftermath of episode 5's ending.
Relationships: Commander & Aurene
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11





	take flight

**Author's Note:**

> been thinking about this for a long time, hope everyone reading enjoys! hahahaha...ah...

The world falls into silence around them, and the Zephyrites no longer sing. The cavernous amphitheatre rings with the wailing and crying of the mourners, but the Commander only hears the resonance of the brand holding up the crumbling walls, the debris falling from the rockface above.

The hard, crystalline floor glints with the eerie purple glow of the brand, converging on the solitary figure at the centre of it all.

The Commander does not grieve or cry. They stare at her until their eyes burn and then they look away, to the right, to the left, queasiness bubbling within.

Every breath a labourious task that brings no reward, no respite from the reality their own hand has wrought. The Commander cannot feel the right side of their body, or the left of their chest. It’s hollow, like the space where their hubris had trapped an Elder Dragon.

The hole in the mountain is still covered in bright, electric blue crystals.

The Commander never even had the chance to examine it properly, to tell her that it was beautiful. They had been so hung up on what it  _ meant _ , they’d never bothered to reach out, to touch, to—

_ To hold _ —

Taimi’s crying has subsided into inaudible gasps; Caithe’s tears run silent blue trails upon her cheek; Braham a shadow behind them, hovering, unable to decide whom to comfort.

The Commander does not crave such a thing. Never has.

A long time ago, the Commander had allowed themselves to be wielded like a sword to cut through the enemies of Tyria. It wasn’t a conscious decision, but a position they’d fallen into somewhere along the way.

Tools don’t have to feel anything. A sword mourns not what it cuts.

Be it a beloved friend or a hated foe.

The Commander’s only talent is to smash things and break them. They deal with their problems by destroying them. Never looking if it was a thing that should have been destroyed. Never looking for alternate methods or using any restraint. And now, at the end, they’ve gone as far as to destroy Tyria’s greatest hope as well.

After all this time, all this effort, their desperate rush to not repeat history—the Commander never envisioned that there could be something worse than their worst fears combined.

Why did they ever return from the dead at all, if it was meant to come to this.

She had known. She—Aurene had known that it would come to this, and yet she took that blow, unflinchingly brave in the face of a cataclysm. The Commander could never be as brave as her. They had ignored her visions. They had chosen to run away. When there was a problem the Commander couldn’t solve, they ran away, always.

They had run away for so long now. Even from her. For so long they had not dared acknowledge what she meant. What she was to them.

The brilliant beautiful life—sunlight, Caithe had called her—the most important person in Tyria, to Tyria’s future, its shining light, gone out because of them. Because of the Commander. To protect a life so unworthy of her regard, the Commander wishes that they had the power to stop their own breaths.

If they did, they’d have never stepped a foot out of Divinity’s Reach. Never ruined so many lives.

_ Haven't enough people already died for you? _

Clearly  _ not _ .

A face swims into their view then, dispelling the ringing noise and the spiraling thoughts for the moment, a glowing blue hand in their vicinity: healing magic. They look at it and say, “No.”

“Commander, your injuries—”

It sounds like the voices are coming from underwater. There’s no water here, only ash and smoke and blood and the ever-present crystals shattering into a thousand glittering shards.

“No,” they repeat, stubbornly. The pain in their ribs grounds them, cutting through the numbness of it all—the blood a reminder of what they’ve survived and  _ how _ .

The face tries to talk again, but then Braham’s there, pulling it aside, worry lining every inch of his face and the Commander wishes—desperately wishes they could feel something about that.

But where their heart was before, now lies only a yawning chasm, still cracked open and bleeding out endlessly on the cold hard crystals. And it’s silent: silent to the cries and the wails, entreaties falling on deaf ears, of hopes dashed upon the uncaring rocks.

The Commander does not know how to answer these calls, and for the first time in their life, a part of them no longer  _ cares  _ to.

Once the commotion abates, the silence returns and pulls them into the abyss once more and the Commander struggles no more.


End file.
